We’re carrying out an experiment in publishing guides as Kindle ebooks. We’ve updated and uploaded our “Network to get Work” guide, which has been published today on Amazon UK and Amazon.com for £2.12 and $3.45 respectively.

There were two primary reasons for doing this.

Firstly, we wanted to test how easy it is to publish to the Kindle Publishing platform. The main thing to note about publishing to the Kindle platform: don’t let your book go near Microsoft Word. You need a clean and simple HTML file to convert. The other thing to note is the Kindle ebook version looks a LOT nicer than a PDF version.

Secondly, we wanted to test the economic benefits of this approach. We’d previously sold this as a self study guide, via our web site, for £20, so we wanted to see what impact there would be if we reduced the price and promoted it on the Amazon Kindle platform. There are tales of a 26 year old making $100K/month from her self-published vampire Kindle novels. Amazon offers 70% royalties, so the return is about the same as if you went through a publisher.

We invite you to a special workshop in London this July, where we can show you the skills that are key to professional success as a technical author, and provide you with a practical approach to developing a successful career in technical communication.

On Monday 13th July we will presenting the workshop near at venue in central London – a few minutes walk from London Victoria station and St James Park Underground station.

We hosted the first of our peer-group mentoring meetings on Tuesday, and I pleased to say the event went as well as we could have expected. We’ve attended and hosted sessions for other entrepreneurs, but this was our first experience of running such an event for documentation managers. The interactions and the nature of the outcomes were the same as we’ve seen before.

The feedback from the participants has been positive too:

The whole afternoon was thoroughly enjoyable as well as informative. This is a unique forum for sharing experience and ideas. It’s the only forum where we can discuss management issues specific to our profession.

Regards,
Jacquie

Firstly, thank you so much for setting up the meeting – your efforts, and Ginny’s, are very much appreciated.

As feedback, I offer my thoughts and comments:

For the first session, I thought the topic was quite challenging. Thanks to your skilled moderation and guidance, and the terrific participation of everyone, some really significant and valuable perspectives were tabled.
It may surprise you that, although I am removed from the situation that was discussed, I found it surprisingly beneficial and therapeutic to hear what everyone had to say.
Hearing the wisdom and thoughts of yourself and fellow communicators cannot be overvalued. The effect of having a safe container and the elimination of any sense of isolation enabled healthy and open discussion and the resulting stream of delving questions were very thought-provoking.

The venue was ideal, too.

Heartfelt thanks and congratulations on an excellent idea executed with skill. Please consider this a great success!

I look forward to the next meeting.
Thanks again and best regards,

John

Thank you for organising the Peer Group Meeting yesterday. I would definitely recommend these meetings to Documentation Managers/Leaders. As advertised it provided a safe forum for the subject to share their issues and receive recommendations and suggestions from a diverse group of peers.

Kind regards
Amanda

“Many thanks to Cherryleaf for setting up this Documentation Peers Group. It is a wonderful opportunity to discuss professional ideas and issues amongst a group of like-minded individuals!”

Cheers, Briana

It was great to meet other documentation professionals and to discuss a real issue facing the industry. Much more fun that arguing about full stops in bulleted lists.

Mark

We are considering setting up additional Mastermind groups – in the UK and mainland Europe – so contact us if this would be of interest to you.

Potentially these may also expand to Melbourne in Australia and Raleigh-Durham NC in the USA – again, contact us if this would be of interest to you.

I’ve been asked to present a workshop at the STC TransAlpine Conference on “career development – an approach and key skills”. This will be held on 8th June in Vienna. I’m a late replacement for a speaker who has unfortunately been taken ill.

We’ll look at:

Future trends in technical communication – where’s it all heading

Personality of success – for technical authors

Marketing yourself (with exercises)

Job hunting and networking (with exercises)

Delegates can also bring along their CVs/Resumes and I ‘ll critique them.